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CONTENTS
1. New Hampshire: Concord, Deerfield, Epsom, Chichester, Northwood
2. Maine: Camden, Rockport, Rockland
3. Boston, Mass: Back Bay
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This list should help if you are doing the NASCAR races up in Louden. NH or just touring the White Mountains, on your way to the coast using Route 4 or heading up to Camden or Rockport in Maine. Restaurants in Northwood, NH. and surrounding area including Chichester, Epsom and Concord. Our favorites are Makris for lunch and dinner and the Circle Diner for breakfast at the Epsom Circle. Anything 5 star is highlighted with red.
*Chadburn's Restaurant, Rte.4 Pleasant service, congenial atmosphere, reasonable prices, gift shop attached.
***Johnson's Restaurant, Rte 4 Atmosphere, congenial, happy. Booths available in front sections, tables and chairs in the rear so large parties can be accommodated. Menu includes mussels, clams, fried onion rings for appetizers. main courses come baked, grilled, or fried for seafood. Steaks and chicken prepared in various ways and ice cream desserts are a specialty. You can watch plate of heaping onion rings being served, bowls of teaming mussels and mouth watering sundaes. Portions are very generous. Lobster roll and salads are also on the menu. At a recent visit, our two choices were baked scallops and baked cod, both prepared with a light covering of seasoned breadcrumbs. Local beers are on tap. Some people seem to enjoy the mini loaf of bread that's presented on a cutting board to each table. We can only say, we usually give it a miss. Most entrees are $9.00 to $20.00. Summertime means a 30 minute wait at peak hours. Lunch and dinner, not open for breakfast.
* Northwood Diner, Rte 4 open for breakfast and lunch, a cheerful diner
offering diner food and with homemade baked goods for sale including
breads.
CHICHESTER
*Weathervane, Rte 4 Seafood and steak, large and busy, value for money, large portions and eager to please.
DEERFIELD
-Lovin' Spoonful Cafe, North Road- open for breakfast and lunch, sandwiches and baked goods and Green Mountain coffee, with Hazelnut the favorite. Peak times you have to wait for a table in this pleasant little spot, but people join each other if there's room at one of the 5 cafe style tables.
**Lazy Lion, North Road-Nice selection of sandwiches, grilled, toasted, and have it your way. Special effort has gone into the rustic country setting making it a very pleasant place to stop for a summer meal.
EPSOM- at the Epsom traffic circle boasting a Wendy's, Dunkin' Donuts, and a McDonalds plus the CIRCLE DINER
**Circle Diner-plain diner atmosphere with a primitive mural on the wall of their back room. Cheerful service for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Their breakfast pancakes are delicious, as are the warmed cinnamon buns, homemade muffins, corn, blueberry and coffeecake. They serve breakfast until 3PM.
Prices are very affordable and they also offer beer and wine.
CONCORD AREA
**Appleby's, Loudon Road, Lots to choose from and it goes down easy.
**Common Man, Rte3 Nice surroundings, extensive menu.
***Newicks, Loudon Rd Lobster is their specialty. They do fried haddock and shrimp that's delicious.
***Makris, Rte 106 Lobster and steak, with excellent seafood, a lobster roll for a great lunch. Their Sports Grill has numerous televisions so you can see the favorite game. It has a sports grill atmosphere with wooden floors, happy noise, and good food. Their adjacent dining area offers booths as well as tables. Chowder and fresh oysters are a great choice. Shellfishstew is a specialty with lobster, crab, shrimp, scallops,clams, mussels, cooked in a white wine and lobster broth, with vegetables, and served with salad and garlic bread.
*TGIF, Loudon Road Convenient spot for lunch or dinner along the busy road out of Concord.
UNO's Fort Eddy Road-Convenient if you are shopping at LL Bean.
**** Red Blazer, Route 3, delicious food, big stone fireplace, beamed ceiling, reasonable prices. Staff? Our waitress was efficient.
MAINE
CAMDEN
*****Natalie's at the Camden Harbour Inn: Put it on your list. Continental food is presented beautifully, delicious, and reasonably priced. The service is friendly and the ambiance just right, not OTT (over the top, dummy) but with red fringed lampshades, red candles, and white tablecloths, you feel pampered and in the mood for champagne.
(Incidentlly, the Camden Harbour Inn is somewhat like everyone's favorite barbecued steak, charcoal on the outside and rare on the inside. Outside you see its white railings and clapboard facade. Inside, high style contemporary. You could be in a hotel in Milan or Amsterdam, or Berlin. The bedrooms, after you're over the culture shock, are serene, comfortable, and spotless. Staff is amiable: Benjamin at the front desk, Oscar the Dutch owner, and then the chambermaids, Carolyn, Sandra, and Andrea. The hotel is a three minute walk from the picture postcard harbor, the shops, and numerous restaurants.)
****The Waterfront Restaurant. Super friendly and lively spot looking out over irresistible Camden Harbor. Food is agreeable and service bubbly with reasonable prices. You'll enjoy your meal and the atmosphere.
ROCKPORT:
**The Helm on Route 90 - sandwiches, salad bar, chowder. Not bad for a quick stop along the way.
ROCKLAND:
The Brown Bag specializing in freshly roasted turkey and chowders. You order your meal at the deli counter, pay for it, then pick it us when they call your name, then clear your own table when you are done. Forgettable from start to finish including the turkey, the staff, the rye bread, and the canopy over the entrance which streams water over you when it rains. Look for a McDonald's.
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| Boston Restaurants-Back Bay |
What was it like for a party of six in Boston trying to have some varied meals out in the Back Bay without needing to take a taxi?
Well, let’s say you are staying at the new hotel, the Mandarin Oriental. You step out of your hotel, wanting a little walk.
Almost just across the street, a pitching wedge away are two Boylston standby’s, super food, amiable service, happy buzz, and for a big city, across the street from a world-class hotel, reasonable prices.
The steak house,
******Abe and Louie’s always can be relied on for tender flavorful steaks, decent vegetables, interesting starters, and if you have a big appetite, perfect desserts. Their salads are, steak salad variations, and the same for chicken, are a good value. If you order their steak salad, the simplest one, without the fancy dressings, the warm steak flavor contrast wonderfully with the vinaigrette dressing. For those o who are tired of these gentle flavors, you can order the more robust blue cheese dressing and sail away on the taste sensation.
The wine menu is extensive and waiters are knowledgeable about the American wine as well as the French. For a two course dinner, expect to pay about $80.00 per person, drinking a California wine.
A few doors down is
*******Atlantic Seafood, unbeatable for fresh fish. Unlike a major competitor, where the raw clams had to be sent back, the oyster bisque sent back and the steamed mussels sent back, Atlantic Seafood apparently has a “sniffer” in the kitchen which prevents this sort of thing. Having opened many raw clams and oysters for serving raw myself, I have always found it obvious when there was an objectionable scent and been able to discard same before it reached the plate. But three of the other major beloved seafood restaurants have been found wanting in this regard. Well, back to Atlantic Seafood.
Lobster ravioli as a starter was a winner as were the fresh oysters. The less adventurous were happy with the endive salad, sparkling fresshand just right with a vinaigrette dressing. All the main course fish dinners ordered were sweet tasting as though caught that morning and generously sized. One was a bit dry but other than that, the wines, the bread, and the “tap water” was enjoyed. We especially noted the easy appearance of the tap water, without the all too pervasive little dance about sparkling or still. It’s sort of a contre temp with the bottled waters at $4.00 and up, to have to say no thanks and appear like a cheapskate or a country bumpkin who doesn’t know his Evian from his Pellegrino. (And it's no use to point out the latest concerning which bacteria are in what. The dinner tab with two courses, wine, (tap water) and tip were again about $65.00 per person. Definitely worth going and a revisit.
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Restaurants in Boston.
******Abe and Louie's on Boylston Street opposite the Mandarin Hotel. Aside from having a wonderful Caeser Salad with slices of tender delicious steak cooked to perfection, we also enjoyed a 2006 chardonnay from Chateau Ste, Michelle. Mauricio also noted other wineries, Duckhorn in California, and the cabernet sauvignon form B.R.Cohn.
***647 Tremont Street We enjoyed a Louis Latour with our lunch at this neighborhood storefront restaurant, 647 Tremont Street, where the fois gras was silky smooth and the dessert of rhubarb crepes was outstanding. The atmosphere is non existent, tables jammed together with staff tripping over the chair legs but otherwise a pleasant experience with the affable waitress. It was Restaurant Week in Boston, a semi annual affair we understand and we'll let you know when it is coming up again. Call ahead to the wineries-breweries if you are interested in wine and beer tasting and other events which many of these American breweries and vineyards sponsor. You'll find award wining American wines and world famous American beers. You can send us the names of American breweries, vineyards places to stay, or restaurants to visit. Use our contact page or american yes @ metrocast.net The subject in your message should be wine-beer.
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Back Bay, Newbury Street: Worth a Try, Three of Them:
******The Capital Grille, a bit full of itself, nonetheless has amiable service, decent food, and a dark paneled dimly lit ambiance. The appetizer menu is a delight, making it hard to choose and rightly so. Portions were large and sharable. Raw oysters were delicious. Bread tray is ample and refreshingly good, clearly not the rubber band variety. For the main course, the higher priced steaks on the menu were tender and flavorful. For example, their Kona steak was melt in your mouth tender and cooked exactly right. However, the lesser priced were surprisingly a bit chewy. Vegetables, happily, tasted freshly prepared and were served beautifully. The cost for the two courses, with a pricey French wine, was about $85.00 per person.
****Le Voile as you would expect is a French restaurant, a bit self conscious all the way from the reception to the usual disdainful French waiter who gradually slid down from his lofty professorial perch, as the interaction between himself and guests revealed that everyone knew where the Rhone Valley was, knew the ingredients for Kir Royale, and which fork to use. The food was fair, presentation also self conscious with rather clumsy little serving bowls, soup vegetable bowls, etc. But the owners are earnest and delightful and the whole thing can only get better. The tab was about $70.00 per person.
***Charlie’s, well, what else can you say except that with its outdoor twinkling lights stretched through trees in the sidewalk eating area, it is very chi-chi, collegiate, and fun. If you stick to their specialty, grilled steaks, hamburger, French fries, with a local beer on tap, you’ll enjoy the experience. Main course salads are only fair and probably deserve a miss. The tab will be a fourth less than the other restaurants. On the weekends it is really crowded, tables jammed together with a bubbling buzz that can’t be beat on a cold snowy evening.
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